One day later.
The house was far too quiet.Not the silence of peace — the silence of something unresolved.
The system announced no rest. No new mission. No bonus.
Lira sat on the couch, idly fiddling with a dulled blade.Elyra organized equipment with no real need.Vance flipped through an old map he already knew by heart.Rodyn remained in the corner where the light didn't quite reach.
Then—
KNOCK KNOCK.
The sound was polite.Almost… out of place.
Even so, the system reacted first.
[SYSTEM — ENTITY DETECTED — ABSOLUTE PRIORITY]Name: TharnathClassification: EssenceBound Concept: VengeanceState: ManifestedLevel: 999Observation: Not hostile — for now.
None of them saw it.But all of them felt it.
— …no one ordered pizza — Vance muttered.
Rodyn frowned.— That's not someone knocking. It's something… announcing its presence.
Lira opened the door.
Tharnath stood there.
Red hood raised. Dark crimson hair slipped out in thick strands.The jacket looked far too heavy to be mere clothing, shifting subtly, reacting to the tension in the environment.The red darkened as the silence stretched.
Black pants swallowed the light.The shadow beneath his feet seemed delayed compared to his body.
On his arm rested a colossal axe, ancient, marked with carvings that didn't form symbols — they formed decisions.
He inclined his head slightly.
— Good morning — he said. — I promise I won't take long. Vengeance tends to be… inconvenient.
Absolute silence.
Elyra was the first to react.
— …sorry, what?
Tharnath stepped inside without asking. The floor creaked as if it had accepted it had no choice.
— Ah. — He looked around the house. — Suitable environment. Recent pain. Unresolved grief. A lot of well-stored hatred. Seven out of ten.
Vance blinked.
— Are you… evaluating our house?
— No. — Tharnath carefully rested the axe on the floor. — Just the emotional climate. The house is irrelevant. You are not.
Rodyn narrowed his eyes.
— You don't move like someone alive.
— Good. — Tharnath sighed. — Being alive is a lot of work.
Lira clenched her teeth.
— Who are you?
Tharnath seemed to consider the question, choosing a simple answer for something complex.
— I am the Essence of Vengeance.
He made a vague gesture with his hand.
— An ancient concept. Highly demanded. Poorly understood.— Pleasure.
The silence became… strange.
Elyra frowned.
— You're joking.
— No. — He inclined his head. — But I try to be polite. It helps with existential acceptance.
Rodyn felt the shadows around him retract on their own.
— Essences don't usually… talk like that.
— You'd be surprised how sarcastic concepts become after a few millennia. — He shrugged. — Repeated pain gets tiring.
The system updated silently.
[SYSTEM — CONCEPT CONFIRMATION]Vengeance ≠ EmotionVengeance = Process
Vance swallowed.
— So you came to… kill us?
Tharnath looked genuinely confused.
— What? No.— You're still useful.
Lira stepped forward.
— Useful for what?
Tharnath smiled faintly. A small, almost tired smile.
— To decide whether this — he gestured vaguely at the air — becomes justice…— or just another unresolved event I'll have to finalize later.
Elyra crossed her arms.
— Do you always show up like this? Knocking on doors?
— Usually not. — He thought for a moment. — But the last one involved silver, public execution, and collective trauma. I thought it was polite to warn you.
Rodyn took a deep breath.
— So you came to observe.
— Exactly.
— Judge?
— Never. — Tharnath shook his head. — Judgment is vanity. I am consequence.
The axe vibrated slightly, as if agreeing.
Lira felt a chill.
— And when do you act?
Tharnath walked back toward the door.
— When someone thinks they can move on pretending nothing happened.
He stopped at the threshold and looked over his shoulder.
— Relax. — he said, almost lightly. — If you do this right… I may not even need to come back.
The door closed on its own.
The system recorded it.
[SYSTEM — PASSIVE EVENT ACTIVE]Name: Essence ObservationRisk: UnknownFailure: Unacceptable
For a few seconds, no one spoke.
Then Vance broke the silence.
— …he just said we're "useful."
Elyra nodded slowly.
— And that was the funny part.
Rodyn stared at the closed door.
— When Vengeance starts making jokes…— someone's going to pay dearly.
Lira clenched her fist.
— Then we can't afford to mess this up.
The system did not respond.But it agreed.
The house was still far too quiet when Elyra broke the weight of the air.
— I don't believe this.
Lira turned immediately.Rodyn lifted his head slightly from the shadows.Vance frowned.
— In what? — Lira asked.
Elyra pointed to the empty space where Tharnath had been.
— That.— "Essence."— He walks, talks, knocks on doors, cracks jokes. He feels… too human.
Rodyn didn't answer, but the shadows around him tensed, as if disagreeing.
— Essences shouldn't explain anything — Elyra continued. — They just exist. That thing felt like someone powerful pretending to be something greater.
The air sank.
There was no sound of arrival.No displacement.
Tharnath was already there, leaning against the kitchen wall as if he'd been waiting too long.
— That argument shows up often — he said with a tired sigh. — Congratulations on your average originality.
Elyra moved her hand toward her metal arm.
— I don't take it back.
— Good. — He straightened. — Honest doubt deserves an honest answer.
The axe moved.Once.
It wasn't fast.It wasn't violent.It was definitive.
Elyra was cut from shoulder to hip, her body separating into two clean halves, no explosion, no exaggeration — as if reality itself had accepted the cut without protest.
Lira screamed.Vance froze.Rodyn felt the shadows recoil in pure instinct.
Both halves hit the floor.
Tharnath tilted his head.
— One second.
He snapped his fingers.
The world undid the interval.
The two halves became one again. Elyra collapsed to her knees, gasping, whole, alive, hands desperately checking her body.
She was breathing.She existed.
— I… — her voice failed — I died.
— Yes — Tharnath said calmly. — It was quick. Six out of ten on the post-death experience scale.
Elyra raised her head, eyes completely devoid of irony.
— …that didn't feel human.
— Thank you. — He smiled faintly. — I try to maintain the standard.
Rodyn spoke quietly, seriously.
— What are you?
Tharnath rested the axe on the floor. Its weight felt far too ancient for that house.
— I am the Essence of Vengeance.
The house seemed to acknowledge it.
— And before you ask — he continued — no, that doesn't mean screaming, bleeding, or acting on impulse.— It means ensuring consequences arrive, sooner or later.
His presence pressed everything around them. Not like force. Like inevitability.
Within the world's narrative, something became clear without needing announcement:Tharnath existed on a level that rendered normal levels irrelevant.Something close to absolute. Something even the system treated with excessive caution.
Lira inhaled slowly.
— Then explain. — she said. — Everything.
Tharnath nodded.
— The virus you encountered… — he began — is not the end.— Nor a mistake.— It's a test.
Vance closed his eyes.
— A test of what?
— Preparedness. — Tharnath replied. — Someone is trying to resurrect an Essence.
Silence fell heavily.
— Not one like me — he continued. — A worse one.
Rodyn felt a chill ripple through the shadows.
— One that was killed — Tharnath said. — By me… and by my brothers and sisters.
Elyra swallowed.
— Essences… plural.
— Absolute concepts aren't born alone. — He shrugged. — There are few of us. And we disagree often.
Lira felt her stomach tighten.
— And the virus?
— It forces the world to accept broken states: living-dead, body-without-consciousness, function-without-soul.— If the world can't endure that… it can't endure what they're trying to bring back.
Vance opened his eyes.
— And who's doing this?
The red of Tharnath's jacket darkened subtly.
— Someone desperate enough to believe they can use an Essence.
Rodyn growled softly.
— That never ends well.
— Never. — Tharnath agreed. — But attempts don't require intelligence. Only desperation.
Lira clenched her fists.
— And Brak?
The name weighed down the air.
— He wasn't the main objective — Tharnath said seriously. — He was confirmation.— They wanted to see if the world still reacted to a real loss.
Elyra spoke, her voice steady despite the tremor.
— It reacted.
— Exactly. — He nodded. — That's why I appeared.
He turned toward the door.
— I didn't come to ask anything. To recruit. Or to threaten.— Just to explain… before you died trying to understand it alone.
Before vanishing, he added lightly:
— Oh. And relax.— If I need to act for real… you won't need to doubt again.
The space he occupied became empty.
The house breathed again.
Elyra ran her hand over her torso, still feeling the echo of the cut.
— …okay — she murmured. — Now I believe.
No one disagreed.
Tharnath reappeared without warning, sitting on the window frame as if he'd always been there. The red jacket undulated slowly, heavy, reacting to what wasn't said.
He looked at each of them.Unhurried.Unpressured.
Then he smiled.
— You want the power to kill the one who killed Brak? — he said, scratching his chin like he was browsing a menu. — But not just kill…
He tilted his head, red eyes gleaming with something almost amused.
— Humiliate.
The air grew heavier.
Lira felt her stomach twist.Rodyn felt the shadows tremble.Vance clenched his fists.Elyra did not look away.
— Because killing is fast — Tharnath continued. — One cut, one end, silence. Almost merciful for your taste.
He raised two fingers.
— Humiliation is different.— It strips certainty.— It makes the target understand, second by second, that everything they believed in was smaller than the pain they caused.
Then he laughed.Not loud.Not cruel.Almost… honest.
— You don't want justice. Justice is too clean.— You want personalized consequence.
He stood, the axe touching the floor with a deep, ancient sound.
— Good news: that's exactly my specialty.
Elyra stepped forward, voice low, tense.
— And the price?
Tharnath raised an eyebrow.
— Everyone asks that like it's a surprise. — he sighed. — The price is never paid beforehand.
He pointed at their chests, one by one.
— It's paid after.— In silence.— When you realize you succeeded… and it still didn't come back.
A moment passed.
— But don't worry — he added with a crooked smile. — I don't charge souls or lives.
He struck the axe against the floor once.
— I charge memory.
Brak's name seemed to echo without being spoken.
Tharnath turned slightly, as if he already knew the answer.
— So… — he said casually — do you just want to kill?
Or will the world learn along with him?
Lira didn't shout.Didn't explain.Didn't ask for anything that wasn't already carved into her.
She stepped forward.
The black fire didn't explode — it condensed.
Her eyes, still red but now dry, locked onto Tharnath.
— Yes.
That was all.
No tremor.No uncontrolled rage.Only decision.
Tharnath blinked once.Then smiled, genuinely satisfied.
— Ah… — he said, tapping the axe lightly on the floor. — What a relief.
He inclined slightly, almost respectfully.
— I like it when people don't try to justify.
The red jacket darkened, as if it had heard the answer and approved.
— Then it's decided — he continued. — Not by contract. Not by pact.— By choice.
Rodyn felt the shadows align.Vance inhaled deeply, accepting a road with no return.Elyra clenched her metal fist, never taking her eyes off Lira.
Tharnath snapped his fingers.
The air vibrated — not with power, but with designation.
— I won't lend you strength — he explained. — I'll teach the world not to protect those who deserve to fall.
He looked directly at Lira.
— When the time comes…— he won't lose just his life.
Tharnath turned to leave, already walking through space as if doors were suggestions.
— He'll lose his name.
Silence followed.
Lira didn't move.
[SYSTEM — LEVEL REEVALUATION]Previous Calculation: INVALIDATEDBiological Limits: IGNOREDEnvironmental Restrictions: REMOVED
New State Registered:Lira Danel — LEVEL 52Vance Reed — LEVEL 52Elyra Stone — LEVEL 52Rodyn Greyfang — LEVEL 52
Small fissures appeared in the floor.Not from impact.From adjustment.
The system attempted to issue additional alerts.Aborted.
It recorded only:
[SYSTEM — INTERNAL NOTE]Essence Detected: VENGEANCEClassification: IRREVOCABLEInteraction: DO NOT CONTEST
Tharnath was already moving away when the world hesitated.Not from fear.From recognition.
He stopped at the threshold where space began to fail and spoke without turning, voice low, precise, like a sentence that needed no witnesses.
— When you finally find him…— don't kill him quickly.
Reality behind him began to erase, like a page torn from existence.
— Kill everything he thinks he is.— Name.— Legacy.— Reason.
The air became too heavy to breathe.
— Leave him alive just long enough to understand…— that no one came to save him.
Space collapsed.
Before disappearing completely, the final sentence fell, cold and absolute:
— Vengeance does not end with death.
Silence.
Not peace.
A countdown.